Expression in Our Hands
by aeternium
Summary: Ten facts, ten moments, ten insights. Ten things you might never have known.
1. Qui Gon Jinn

1. As an initiate, Qui-Gon always liked Padawan Dooku, and he knows the feeling is mutual. They share meals together whenever the older of the two is at the temple, and talk about the nature of the Force, although Qui-Gon is still too young to appreciate its true subtleties. Eventually he asks him to call him by his first name instead of Initiate Jinn, but Padawan Dooku never asks him to call him Yan. When he asks him instead to be his apprentice, only a week after passing his trials, Qui-Gon understands why.

2. When Qui-Gon is thirteen, picks up the habit of roaming Coruscant's lower levels between missions. Master Dooku, always of more sophisticated tastes, doesn't understand this so much but encourages it nonetheless. He thinks it's important to have a thorough grounding of all cultures, even the less desirable aspects.

3. It's because of this habit that he meets a girl named Rue Jinn. She is sixteen years old, has the same thick Coruscanti accent, and grew up in an orphanage. They hit it off right away, and he may or may not accidentally run into her at the same time in the same place the next week.

4. And every week following for the next forty years.

5. He passes the trials at the age of twenty-one, and the moment his padawan braid falls into his hand, he's quite unsure what to do with himself. He doesn't remember a period of his life when Master Dooku wasn't there. He should have known it was a pointless worry. Dooku wasn't going to just fade away.

6. From then on, he keeps his focus centered on the present, instead of worrying about the uncertainties of the future.

7. Qui-Gon hates very few things. It's not the Jedi way. But he hates – _hates_ – Tal spices beyond even the foulest the galaxy has to offer. Master Dooku knows this, and accidentally lets it slip to Xanatos several days after his apprenticeship begins. Qui-Gon spends years checking his food for the traces before eating, while Xanatos looks innocently on.

8. Obi-Wan never discovers this little piece of knowledge, but Qui-Gon suspects that, even if he had, he wouldn't have put it to use.

9. Rue tells him that she's at her wit's end with her elder son. He's a punk, a nobody, wasting his life on deathsticks and stolen cars, but _oh_, how he makes her laugh. His younger brother is honest, straight-laced, studying to be a doctor. He'll make her proud, her friends say, he's the good one. Qui-Gon squeezes her shoulder and tries to not see the parallels.

10. He hadn't planned on taking on another padawan. Obi-Wan is more than ready for the trials, and he himself is getting old. He had planned on passing the rest of his days on solo missions, or finally cracking out of Master Dooku his full history with Madam Nu. But then Qui-Gon remembers his own advice, remembers the futility of _plans _for a future that is always in motion. He centers himself on the present, on the living Force, and knows that this was meant to be. Anakin must be trained.


	2. Sola Naberrie Janren

1. Varykino is just a house until Sola's mother takes her to Theed when she's six. There she sees palaces for the first time, monuments, structural miracles. There's no time to look at them too closely -

2. (she's there to see her grandfather, after all – Mom says he's dying, but Sola isn't entirely sure what that means, except that everyone's sad all the time and Grandmother Ryoo throws things sometimes when she thinks she's alone)

3. - but when she returns home, she starts to take apart the house, bit by bit. It starts out as vague, messy drawings of each room, but over the next two years they become more refined, more detailed. Sola starts to appreciate the beauty of Lake Country craftsmanship, the nuances of how it all works together to so much as stay up.

4. No one is particularly surprised when she decides on Architecture, even if it is a radical choice for a girl.

5. Three years is a difficult age gap, but she and Padmé make it work. It isn't terribly difficult for Sola to strike the balance between companion (_and that means shopping and gossip and fake weddings when they're feeling particularly juvenile_) and mother (_and that means doing her hair and being the shoulder to cry on and soothing her fears that she just cares too much to be in Legislature_).

6. Sola is at school, seventeen, studying for her Superior when Darred kisses her head and drops the datapad on top of her massive pile of notes. The election results are in. Her little sister won by a landslide.

7. She's always thought that the Naboo are horribly weak-willed when it comes to naming trends. Her mother's generation is full of Jobals and Linals and Hetals, while friends her own age are called Tela and Anala and Niola. (She doesn't think too much of Padmé's generation – it's presumptuous, she thinks, trying to model one's daughter after Kiavé herself.) It's for this reason she decides to forsake the suddenly popular –ri suffix and names her first daughter Ryoo.

8. What she doesn't take into account is that, while many of her friends are pregnant around the same time, she is the first to actually give birth. They all think that naming her daughter after her formidable grandmother is a _marvelous_ idea, and before Sola knows it, she's started the newest fashion herself.

9. She isn't nearly as shocked as her parents when Padmé's body is returned to them. Through her grief, she registers surprise at her little sister's condition, but then it comes back to her. That boy, the Jedi. They weren't allowed attachments. Of course Padmé had kept quiet.

10. Sola and Darred are getting on in years, but are still venerated among the finest architects in the Chommell sector, and so she is unsurprised to be contacted by Pooja's former colleague to aid in the restoration effort after the Empire. She is the smallest bit surprised, however, when she is introduced to Minister Organa's twin brother – not Organa but Skywalker – and sees the face of her little sister smiling politely back at her.


	3. Anakin Skywalker

1. Anakin's first language isn't Basic. It's not even Huttese, though growing up on Tatooine results in a passing fluency in both. Instead, his first language is Tal, the tongue of his ancestors, passed down from his grandmother to his mother to himself. The people of Tatooine know when to keep to themselves, so if anyone notices that Shmi speaks with a strange accent despite having lived on the desert planet her whole life, or that Anakin sometimes slips into a strange musical inflection... well, even if they notice, nothing is mentioned of it. No one knows that, in the privacy of their own home, the Skywalkers speak a secret language of freedom.

2. It's an accident, the first time Watto realizes Anakin can race. He isn't supposed to be in the pod at all, but he's adjusting the heat shields, and suddenly it occurs to him that there's an empty cockpit and no sign of his master and just how different can building machinery be from actually controlling it, really?

3. Anakin almost kills himself that afternoon, because suddenly he isn't just speeding along the desert floor but going up and up and up and then there's an urgent beeping coming from somewhere and then there's a throbbing pulse in his collarbone and he realizes he needed to go back down before it's too late. When he touches down, Watto is thrilled with Anakin's newfound ability, but that doesn't save him from a beating.

4. The smashed joint on his left hand fuses together and never heals properly from that afternoon. It serves throughout the rest of his life as a reminder to curb his recklessness, to consider the consequences, but only on the rare occasion he remembers it.

5. Her name is Bithia and she's just a friend, someone from the lower levels he met a few months ago. She's just a friend, and she knows a few things. She's not an attachment. She's _not._

6. (Padmé is.)

7. He thinks that maybe he should have said his mother's funeral rites in Tal. But it wouldn't have been right. Tal is the language of freedom, and dead isn't free.

8. Anakin remembers briefly after he's lost his mother and runs the risk of losing the only other woman he's ever loved. He can't put her in that kind of danger. He can't. But then Padmé raises an eyebrow, starts up the starship, and he remembers why he loves her. His finger twitches slightly, then fades back into his subconscious.

9. Weddings aren't allowed on Tatooine. Not on _his_ Tatooine, anyway. But he wants to make her happy, and if this will do that, he's willing to undergo the uncomfortable foreign rituals of a holy man and a white caavna veil. It's just a formality, really. They were already married in his eyes.

10. Padmé insists their baby will be a boy, but Anakin knows otherwise. He just knows. She laughs at this, but decides it only reasonable for them to each choose "their" baby's name. She picks Luke, for the Naboo guardian of the sky, and while Anakin likes this, he has other ideas. _Leia_ is Tal for daughter, a variation of the goddess Lio, and the female element of _lei'anika,_ the root of his own name. The word means a rebirth, a possibility of a better future, a promise of a new hope.


	4. Shaak Ti

1. Shaak is the daughter of Praakri Ti, socialite heiress to an opera fortune, and her husband Saa Ti. This should not have been common knowledge to anyone but the Jedi Council, except that during her first few years of life, the high-profile couple were inordinately fond of letting the public know their daughter was a Jedi. They found it glamorous. The Council found it unacceptable.

2. Though Praakri and Saa were silenced early on, she has still spent her whole life dealing with the same paparazzi who follow her parents around.

3. She is fourteen when her outside-Temple friend Bev asks if she'll have sex with him. She's known what sex is since Master Valmeros told her when she was ten, but not what sex _is_, so she figures she might as well find out. It's not like anyone else has asked her.

4. She is fourteen when she realizes the true power of the Force. In all her years until then, Shaak has pitied the Others, the non-sensitives, because they could never know the caress of the Force, the feel of it pulsing through you and growing stronger until everything is opened to it and anything is possible in the galaxy. But her pity was pointless, because Bev knows what that is now. Because of her. Because the Force allowed her to let him know it for the first time.

5. Experimentation has always been quietly tolerated among the Jedi as long as it doesn't lead to attachment, which is why none of the other girls mind that all the boys go to Shaak. It saves them confusion.

6. To kill an Akul is to be forever revered among the Togruta, but to kill a sentient beast for senseless sport goes against the Jedi way of life in all aspects. "It attacked Fe," she explains to Master Windu when he enquires after her new headdress.

7. She never wanted a padawan, which is why, despite the illicit heartbreak and grief – (_oh, Fe, you never stood a chance_) – she is relieved when the Council decides not to assign her another. She knows what it is to give, but she knows best what it is to be alone.

8. When she is offered a seat on the Council, Shaak experiences genuine fear for the first time in her life, because blasters and paparazzi and attachments and explosions are nothing in comparison to taking on the legacy left by Master Yaddle.

9. It's almost a relief when Master Valmeros sits her down in his chambers like she's his padawan once more and tells her in his clipped and businesslike way that nothing could have made him more proud, that she's more than ready to take on the responsibility of a Master, and that Yaddle herself had personally chosen her as her inevitable replacement.

10. Shaak Ti has never been a very good teacher, but she knows how to commune with the Force, and she knows how to give. The Younglings know that she is always willing to help them meditate, and she's guiding little Niada ki Taji through her exercises when they first hear blasters outside the Temple.


	5. Yan Dooku

1. He is thirteen the last time he permits anyone to call him Yan. Surnames are a sign of formality, of not getting too close or too attached, and he's learned the hard way that attachment only leads to inevitable betrayal. In his mind, 'Yan' becomes nothing more than an insult, Lorian's voice still bitterly ringing in his ears.

2. Five years later, Dooku seriously considers breaking this cardinal rule because Jocasta just kissed him and it does seem awfully wrong to kiss someone you only call by their surname.

3. When she pretends it never happened, he almost bangs his head against the wall for being so weak-willed.

But Padawan Dooku has more control than that. He's above such vulgar displays.

4. He first meets Initiate Jinn when the boy is nine, and he himself is only nineteen. Jinn has exceptional skill for a child of his age, and what's more, when Dooku goes to speak with him, he's delightfully droll.

5. Master Yoda is amused when Dooku confesses he thinks he's found a padawan.

"Ready to take on a student, are you, when still a student yourself, you are?" he asks with a smile.

"No, Master, but I would very much like to cultivate a friendship with the boy."

Master Yoda's blessing is the last thing he needs before he is completely certain.

6. They are sharing a meal together when Jinn asks him to call him Qui-Gon. Dooku never asks him to call him Yan, and even after they become master and apprentice, Qui-Gon never guesses that the reason is two-fold.

7. The events surrounding Komari's death and the disaster at Galidraan leave Dooku quite disturbed. But he is sixty-one at the time, and though his faith is shaken enough to call out for a reform of the Order he has served all his life, it is not enough to convince him to leave it entirely –

8. (It disturbs him at first to realize that he has come to accept the dark side of the Force, but soon realizes that he can call upon it without corrupting himself. He thinks he may have hit upon something undiscovered here.)

9. – no, that comes with the death of his first apprentice, when word reaches him of what has happened in Theed. Another fine knight lost to the squabbling games of politicians. The Order is shocked when he announces his intention to leave. At seventy-four, where can he go? What can he do? Dooku has options, though.

10. Dooku doesn't die above Coruscant by the hand of Anakin Skywalker. He died years earlier, at the birth of Tyranus.


	6. Ahsoka Tano

1. She's always known that Master Koon was the one who brought her to the Jedi Temple, and not because he told her. Ahsoka's first clear memory is of a brown alien face, and while most three year-olds are frightened of such things, she knows she wasn't, because somehow she knew he was smiling underneath that scary breathing mask.

2. Anakin doesn't remember that they met long before Christophsis. He doesn't remember the specific faces of the first generation of Younglings he cultivated friendships with – (there have been too many since). He doesn't remember the little Togruta girl who always sat by his left knee while the twelve year-old Padawan laughed and told them stories about podraces. She doesn't remind him, because it wouldn't make a difference, and Togruta have longer memories than most anyway.

3. In all her life, Ahsoka has always had role models, and they've all been Jedi. So she can't help but be a little perplexed at her fierce admiration for Captain Rex, because he's a clone, and doesn't that mean he's supposed to be her subordinate?

"In my book, experience outranks everything."

So she sticks close to him for far longer than she probably should, because even if it makes no sense, that's _exactly_ the kind of Jedi she wants to be.

4. Ahsoka, it seems, has a lot to learn, because when Master Anakin doesn't return to the bridge when he returned with the senator over fifteen minutes ago she decides it's time to go make sure he didn't get lost. But when she finally does find him she has to clamp her hand over her mouth and duck back around the corner because _that_ was definitely something she wasn't supposed to see.

"This is Senator Amidala," Master Anakin says when they return to the bridge sometime later, all business, and Ahsoka tries not to laugh when she shakes the woman's hand.

5. _Miss Priss_ is her first impression of Barriss Offee. Because really, _who_ is actually that perfect? Barriss dispatches her work gracefully and efficiently, and Master Unduli gives her silent gratification with a hand on her shoulder. Ahsoka sasses Master Anakin and he shouts right back.

It's only after Geonosis, when they're alone in her bunk and Barriss winks and pulls out a pack of what looks like some sort of herb, that she thinks she might rather like the Mirialan girl after all.

6. Miraj Scintel's hair gives her a headache. It's too red. But then again, everything here in the Zygerrian palace seems garish and tasteless and _damn it Anakin_ _would you please just filter your thoughts for once?_ because how the fuck is she supposed to concentrate on the queen and the mission with her master broadcasting all over the place? It's not often she feels the genuine need to chide him, but he's seen and done a million things, this is his _job_, and it's not like he's the one with a leash around his neck. He's going to blow their cover. She can feel it.

7. _Bani_ means 'white' in Shilean, and Ahsoka knows it's not a very inspired name, but it fits the little jax. She's too tired to come up with anything else. The death and destruction and sheer exhaustion of the last day have run their course and Ahsoka knows it's a miracle she escaped the attack on her home. She's screamed and run across miles of turu grass and followed Bani into this dark forest and that has to be enough for now.

8. She still carries her lightsaber after all these months, but Yalani thinks she should learn the _praabhu_, the traditional Shilean weapon, if they are to recruit others and work as a solid unit.

"Because that was working so well for you," she laughs, and Yalani punches her playfully because it's true, when Ahsoka found her fending off Imperial Clones the other day she wasn't doing too well. But a militia, with the right training and the right heart… now that could be something.

Bani sounds his agreement.

9. She can't speak the language, but Ahsoka studied Linguistics as an Initiate and remembers enough Wookiee to understand. He's a contact for the rebellion – a _rebellion_ – scouting across the galaxy, balancing that with raising his cub properly. Ahsoka laughs. His cub looks to be a human of about sixteen or so, and Does Not Want To Be Here.

She can't leave. She wants to help, but she can't leave. Her place is here now.

Ahsoka is sad to see Chewbacca go, but he knows how to find her if the rebellion ever finds its way to Shili.

10. In the end, Chewbacca does remember how to find her, and when she leaves the planet for the first time in twenty-three years, she leaves with the express purpose of meeting two people she hadn't known existed before that morning.

Leia rails at her for speaking so well of him, Skywalker and Tano going head to head once more. Luke sits quietly, frowning.

"How can you understand?" she asks with more years of experience than she knew she had. "He was never a monster, not then. He was just a human, more so than most, and they wanted him to be more. So did I."


	7. Padmé Amidala

1. The social elite of Theed consider the Lake Country aristocracy to be simple country folk, and the Lake Country aristocracy find the social elite of Theed to be frivolous snobs and artificial to the last. This is the battle that Padmé Naberrie, daughter of a gentleman farmer and a socialite, is born to.

2. She's five the first time her father allows her to accompany him on a relief mission. It's a simple mission distributing donations of food and clothing to refugees on Chommell Minor, but Padmé has never been off-planet before and that's what has her excited. She's not too excited to ignore the sadness and small amount of fear around her, though.

Her dad will later joke that asking that little girl to play ball was the first step in her political career.

3. The Naberrie family moves to Theed when she's eight. Sola's studying Architecture and Mom wants her to go to Myoon like she did but _Mom history's so boring_. She wants to do Legislature. She wants to help people, like Daddy does, and she's been able to put together a convincing argument since she was six years old.

None of them really like to argue with Padmé, anyway. She's too adorable and they never win.

4. Padmé briefly entertains the notion of not taking the pass to skip her Superior. Sabé was the only other person in her class who got the pass, and she's not really sure she wants her best friend to become her fiercest political opponent. Even at age eleven she understands the inevitability of this.

5. It's almost a relief when Sabé decides not to take it instead. But she's not going back to school so Padmé asks her to stay – it's never too early to start building an administration.

6. The first time she ever sees Anakin Skywalker, she doesn't really see him. Just another presence in the already-shabby mechanic store. Then everyone else has left and he's talking to her and he's actually sort of adorable under all that filth. It doesn't occur to her to ask what a kid as young as him is doing working in a place like this, not until she already has the answer.

7. After Ani has gone to bed, she stays up late into the night drinking tea with his mother. Shmi Skywalker is an amazing woman, Padmé decides as she tells her about her childhood on the nomadic routes and her own mother and the Tal people she comes from but has never known. When Padmé tells her she is a child of two worlds, too, Shmi smiles and takes her hand knowingly, and suddenly she is very gratefully she didn't go into the specifics. It would have ruined everything.

8. When she hears that the Jedi Council isn't going to train Anakin, her first thought is that maybe her parents could adopt him instead.

9. She'd never given much thought to the Gungans her people share their planet with, and she's wholly embarrassed that it is only now that they could be useful that she extends a hand of friendship. This is a time of need for them both, she tells herself, but she still feels the weight of judgment bearing down on her.

10. Padmé never wanted to be in a battle. She hates violence and has done everything she could up until now to prevent so much as a single blaster over this whole ordeal. But the Senate and it's ineffectual leader were her last hope for a peaceful solution, and this is her palace, her people, her _home_. There's no hatred here, no corruption, no slavery. She's going to keep it that way, not just because it's what she was elected to do.


End file.
